News – MeriTalk

NSA Issues Zero Trust Guidance for Defense Operational Technology

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 19:12:43 GMT

The National Security Agency (NSA) released new guidance on Oct. 8 for applying zero trust security principles to operational technology (OT) systems supporting defense, national security, and critical infrastructure missions.

The guidance aims to help system owners and operators reduce the risk of unauthorized access, lateral movement, and persistent adversary activity in OT environments, where legacy equipment and mission-specific systems can make traditional cybersecurity protections difficult to implement.

The agency’s new Cybersecurity Information Sheet, Hardening Department of War Critical Operational Technology Environments with Zero Trust Principles, is primarily intended for National Security Systems (NSS), Department of War, and Defense Industrial Base (DIB) network owners and operators, as well as IT and OT managers.

“The adoption of ZT principles is essential for enhancing the security of legacy OT, enabling defense-in-depth across critical infrastructure while ensuring adherence to federal guidance,” NSA said in a press release.

Zero trust assumes a network breach is possible or has already occurred, requiring continuous verification of users, devices, workflows, and communications.

NSA said applying those principles to OT environments presents challenges because legacy and mission-specific equipment may not support the same security controls used in enterprise IT systems.
The agency said the guidance also applies to technical leaders and cybersecurity professionals outside the defense community, including those responsible for protecting critical infrastructure.

NSA identified energy, water, agriculture, public health, and government facilities as sectors that could face significant damage from cyberattacks intended to deny, degrade, disrupt, deceive, or destroy critical infrastructure operations.

The agency did not specify an implementation deadline in its announcement. NSA directed system owners and operators to the full Cybersecurity Information Sheet for technical recommendations on strengthening OT security.

Marine Corps’ New ‘Fight Club’ Pits Humans Against AI

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 18:56:20 GMT

The Marine Corps University (MCU) is launching a wargaming tournament that will pit military personnel against an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered adversary to test tactical decision-making, battlefield strategies, and whether humans can outmaneuver machines in simulated combat.

The university announced the “FIGHT CLUB Humans vs. Machine Mindgame Tournament” in an Oct. 14 announcement. The competition will run from Dec. 1, 2026, through April 1, 2027, with applications due Nov. 14.

The tournament is designed to explore the use of autonomous AI agents in military wargaming, allowing participants to compete against a simulated adversary capable of adjusting its strategy as scenarios unfold.

The Marine Corps described the competition as “a pathway event towards integrating Super Intelligence into wargaming by leveraging an autonomous agent to act as a highly trained adversary in digital wargames versus humans.”

Participants will face an AI-controlled opponent in two modern combat scenarios: a carrier strike group versus carrier strike group engagement and a drone swarm scenario.

The competition will use Command Professional Edition (CPE), a digital wargaming platform, integrated with an AI opponent developed by Strategy Robot.

According to the announcement, the AI system uses strategic reasoning and computational game theory to generate, evaluate, and adapt potential courses of action. Unlike traditional scripted computer opponents, the system is designed to assess changing battlefield conditions, anticipate human decisions, and adjust its tactics throughout the simulation.

The tournament will also give participants access to an AI-enabled after-action review capability powered by a large language model.

The tool will allow players to examine data from completed games, evaluate their decisions, and interact conversationally with game data to identify performance patterns, strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement.

MCU said the competition will “explore the potential of AI to enhance wargaming, player development, and performance analysis.”

The tournament will take place online through MCU’s Wargaming Cloud, which provides remote access to digital wargaming capabilities used for military education, experimentation, and professional development.

Participation is open to active-duty and reserve Marines, members of the joint force, government civilians and contractors associated with the Defense Department, and personnel from allied military organizations.

Applicants with previous experience using Command: Modern Operations or CPE will receive preference, although individuals willing to learn the platform may also apply. MCU will select participants based on their wargaming experience, interest in the competition, and professional development goals.

Selected participants will be able to play against the AI multiple times, subject to software license availability.

To qualify for the final standings, players must complete at least five games in each scenario. Final scores will be determined by averaging each participant’s five highest scores in each scenario and combining those averages.

An online scoreboard will allow participants to track tournament standings and compare performance throughout the competition. Awards will recognize the top overall competitors and top Marine participants.

The initiative is part of MCU’s FIGHT CLUB extracurricular wargaming program, which provides opportunities to practice tactical and operational decision-making through competitive simulations.

Beyond the competition itself, the tournament will provide an opportunity to examine how adaptive AI adversaries and AI-assisted performance reviews could support military education and training.

Applications must be submitted through the MCU Wargaming webpage by 11:59 p.m. ET on Nov. 14. MCU plans to offer tutorials and practice sessions ahead of the Dec. 1 launch.

GAO Targets AI, Cybersecurity Oversight in New Strategic Plan

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 17:45:07 GMT

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is putting artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity at the center of its oversight priorities for the next five years, while also planning to expand its own use of emerging technologies to improve government accountability and support Congress.

In its new strategic plan for fiscal years (FY) 2027 through 2032, released on Oct. 16, GAO outlined three overarching goals focused on evaluating federal programs, improving government performance, and strengthening the watchdog’s internal capabilities. The plan emphasizes reviewing federal AI policies, cybersecurity protections, technology acquisition, and emerging technology adoption.

“We begin this planning period amid rapid changes in government and society: advances in emerging technology, including artificial intelligence, mounting financial pressures, a shifting national and global security environment, and intensifying cybersecurity threats,” acting Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown wrote in the plan.

“We must be agile as congressional needs and priorities rapidly change and federal agencies reimagine how they carry out their missions using emerging technology,” Brown added.

Under its technology oversight objectives, GAO plans to assess federal cybersecurity efforts, including protecting government systems, securing critical infrastructure, safeguarding sensitive data, and establishing a national cybersecurity strategy.

The watchdog also intends to evaluate federal AI deployment and oversight, including associated risks, international competitiveness, and the effectiveness of AI policy and regulatory frameworks.

GAO will also review federal IT acquisition, management, and strategic planning practices, with a focus on agency technology portfolios, emerging technology adoption, software development practices, and technical workforce capacity.

On the national security front, the agency plans to examine risks associated with adversarial AI use, autonomous systems, and AI-enabled decision-making.

Beyond its oversight responsibilities, GAO plans to leverage emerging technologies to modernize its own operations. The agency aims to expand enterprise-wide adoption of AI and data analytics, use its Innovation Lab to securely test tools that improve audit and business processes, and utilize cloud technologies.

The plan also identifies technology workforce development as a priority, including streamlining hiring, “particularly for technical and specialty areas such as data science, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and emerging technologies.”

GAO intends to expand training opportunities to strengthen employees’ analytical, cybersecurity, and AI skills.

GAO said it will track progress toward its strategic goals annually through its Performance and Accountability Report. The agency reported that its work generated $62.5 billion in financial benefits during FY 2026, and its new plan aims to build on those results.

GDIT Brings AI-Assisted Development to FAFSA Modernization

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 14:33:39 GMT

The 2027–2028 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form is delivering aid eligibility estimates to many students almost immediately, a shift that was enabled by new real-time data connections and a more iterative approach to software development.

The Education Department’s Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) oversees the FAFSA, which around 18 million Americans file each year to receive federal student financial aid.

This year, the department opened the FAFSA form online on Sept. 23, marking the earliest launch in the program’s history. GDIT, which received the FAFSA Award Eligibility Determination contract in 2022, built and implemented the backend system that powers the online experience.

“The Trump Administration redesigned and streamlined the form with American students and families in mind,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement.

In a recent interview with MeriTalk, Shad Harp, GDIT’s vice president who leads the company’s FAFSA program, said that most students now take about 15 minutes to complete the FAFSA form.

Harp said that one of the biggest changes to the form this year is its ability to conduct real-time data matching with other government systems.

The FAFSA system can now pull tax information directly from the IRS and validate identities through the Social Security Administration in real time, he said. A real-time connection with the National Student Loan Data System also eliminated a process that previously contributed to multi-day waits for eligibility information.

“For most students, the form will now provide an instantaneous result of what your aid eligibility will be, because we connect directly into the students’ loan information,” Harp said.

Behind those changes, GDIT is also using artificial intelligence (AI) to assist its software development process.

“We are leveraging AI for every step of our software development lifecycle,” Harp said.

“The cool thing about what GDIT is bringing to the table here is we are model agnostic from a technology perspective,” Harp said, adding that development teams can build AI agents with skills designed to meet GDIT’s quality requirements.

He said the software development lifecycle at GDIT includes automated testing designed to catch problems before code reaches production.

“We don’t merge code into testing or production if our automated quality checks find any bugs,” he said. “This enabled us to enhance the efficacy and security of the application process.”

GDIT also beta tested the FAFSA form with smaller groups of students before opening it more broadly, gradually increasing the number of users ahead of the full launch.

“We’re no longer doing big bang releases,” Harp said. “We tested this year’s form with a smaller subset of students at universities across the country. Once we were confident that the form and improvements were working, we kept increasing the number of users until we released the application to the public.”

Harp said that approach reflects one of GDIT’s biggest takeaways from earlier FAFSA modernization efforts.

“I think the biggest lesson that we learned was to deliver early and often so we can find and respond quickly to any issues,” Harp said.

Pavan Pidugu’s Parting Advice to Federal CIOs: Have the Courage to Change

Fri, 16 Oct 2026 13:00:50 GMT

Pavan Pidugu has a blunt diagnosis for what most often holds federal technology back: a resistance to change, even when agencies have the money and talent to move.

“The biggest problem is the ability to change,” Pidugu told MeriTalk. “Everybody wants change until it is their turn to be changed.”

Pidugu spoke with MeriTalk days before leaving his role as chief digital and information officer at the Department of Transportation (DOT). He was looking back on six years in federal service – first as chief technology officer at the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and later as DOT’s top technology official – while offering a challenge to the leaders who will carry the work forward.

The mission, he said, remains the same: keeping people and goods safe as they move by air, road, rail, and water. What must keep changing is how technology teams support it.

“In the last 18 months, we were probably able to accomplish certain things that have been talked about for 18 years,” Pidugu said. “The important thing is for agencies to continue to keep the momentum and continue to keep delivering at the same pace, if not much faster.”

Building from the workforce up

Asked to assess DOT’s fiscal year 2027 (FY27) technology priorities, Pidugu described a hierarchy as opposed to a collection of separate investments.

Digital government and citizen experience are the goal, he said. Application modernization, cloud-native development, cybersecurity, and robust infrastructure are the means. Workforce transformation is the foundation beneath all of them.

“The workforce of yesterday does not meet the needs of what you have today,” he said. “The goal is the citizen experience. In order to reach that goal, the foundation is workforce transformation.”

Pidugu said public-facing digital services should meet or exceed the standards people encounter in banking, shopping, and other parts of daily life. When government experiences are difficult or fragmented, trust suffers.

He pointed to improvements in DOT’s aviation consumer complaint process as the kind of change citizens can feel directly. He also cited the department’s recent deployment of new surface movement radar at Newark Liberty International Airport – replacing a 30-year-old system – as evidence that long-discussed modernization can move faster.

Those examples should not feel surprising, he said. They should become routine.

Embedding AI in the work

To succeed with artificial intelligence (AI), agencies should define the return they expect, identify the key performance indicators they will track during a proof of concept (POC) or proof of value, and decide in advance what happens if the technology meets those measures, Pidugu said.

Today, agencies are launching disconnected POCs faster than they are putting successful tools into day-to-day operations, he noted.

“Definitely don’t stop with POCs,” he said. “AI has been tested. It adds value if implemented to solve a specific problem.”

At DOT, AI work includes agentic support for some IT service desk workflows. The department is also exploring AI to analyze large volumes of public comments submitted through rulemaking, support call centers, and accelerate software development.

Pidugu set an aggressive target for software development: shrinking an 18-month development cycle to a matter of weeks. He believes AI can help agencies get there if they define the problem and measure the results.

He also wants agencies to look beyond chatbots and use AI inside the workflow itself.

“AI can do a lot more things,” Pidugu said. “It can actually reduce friction in the work processes. It can eliminate the need for people to have 10 clicks. How do you reduce those clicks from 10 to two or one?”

Fixing the foundation beneath AI

Unfortunately, AI projects quickly expose weaknesses in an agency’s data and legacy systems, Pidugu observed.

An agency may want enterprise generative search or real-time decision intelligence, Pidugu said, only to encounter unstructured, siloed, and uncurated legacy data. Inconsistent taxonomies, limited master data management, and decades of incompatible application programming interfaces can stop a promising AI initiative from delivering useful results.

“The focus needs to be on reducing that foundational gap,” he said.

Pidugu called for stronger data governance and common master data management practices before agencies expect AI to synthesize information across the enterprise.

He offered similar advice on quantum computing. Agencies should prepare for it, he said, without skipping the modernization work their current systems still need.

Turning cyber plans into risk reduction

Pidugu framed DOT’s cybersecurity work around three priorities: reducing vulnerabilities in aging systems, using AI to accelerate security processes and continuous monitoring, and preparing for post-quantum risks.

To reduce vulnerabilities, DOT created an internal risk reduction task force to examine legacy infrastructure and systems and push remediation work forward.

“Somebody has to go fix the vulnerability rather than creating a plan,” Pidugu said. “What you have needs to be secure enough to begin.”

To accelerate security operations, Pidugu wants agencies to use AI. He said AI could shorten processes such as securing an authority to operate for a new application from six to nine months to 30 to 45 days. It could also help security teams analyze, assess, and triage new issues through continuous monitoring, he noted.

To prepare for post-quantum cryptography, agencies also need to reduce dependence on aging tools and prepare their encryption before quantum threats become operational, Pidugu said.

Finishing what you start

Pidugu’s approach to moving faster starts with finishing smaller pieces of work.

“If you are able to identify that by doing 10 small things, you would move 10 big mountains, then do those 10 small things first,” he said. “Start and finish. If you start everything and don’t finish anything at all, nothing gets done.”

In his farewell message to DOT employees, Pidugu acknowledged that the department had done some things extremely well and could have handled others better. That is part of working at a pace that is unfamiliar, he said.

His advice was to keep moving, keep removing complexity from systems and processes, and resist the comfort of the status quo.

“You will make some mistakes, but it also tells you that you are actually doing some work,” Pidugu said. “Refusing to accept that status quo and having the courage to say, ‘Let’s try,’ is the only way for that progress to actually happen.”

House Democrats Seek GAO Audit of FAA’s AI-Based Air Traffic Tools

Thu, 15 Oct 2026 19:45:33 GMT

A group of 23 House Democrats is calling on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) deployment of two air traffic control management platforms, citing concerns about artificial intelligence (AI) safety and system reliability.

In an Oct. 13 letter to acting Comptroller General Orice Brown, Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Rep. André Carson, D-Ind., ranking member of the Aviation Subcommittee, and 21 other committee Democrats requested an audit of the FAA’s Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories (SMART) and Flow Management Data and Services (FMDS) platforms.

“While technological modernization is essential, the FAA’s development and implementation of FMDS and SMART have generated considerable concern from Members of this Committee and key aviation stakeholders,” the lawmakers wrote.

“Concerningly, the nation’s frontline aviation safety workforce apparently had little to no input into SMART’s development and have received limited training and information during the current deployment process,” they continued.

The two platforms are part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to overhaul the nation’s air traffic control infrastructure through its Brand New Air Traffic Control System initiative, which aims to modernize major portions of the system by the end of 2028.

The FAA awarded a 12-year, nearly $876 million contract in June to software startup Air Space Intelligence to deploy the platforms.

FMDS is designed to replace the FAA’s aging Traffic Flow Management System, using flight plans, airline schedules, and real-time aircraft positioning data to identify congestion and improve traffic management.

SMART, meanwhile, operates as an enhancement within FDMS. It uses predictive AI to analyze approximately 200 data streams – including flight paths, airport capacity, controller staffing, air traffic control communications, and weather patterns – to generate flight routing and scheduling recommendations.

In September, the FAA began limited operations of SMART in the Washington, D.C., region, with plans to gradually expand SMART to other airports.

The lawmakers raised concerns about the potential for SMART to produce inaccurate information or interfere with decisions made by experienced air traffic controllers.

“The use of artificial intelligence within SMART has rightfully raised serious questions about its reliability and safety benefits, particularly on its potential to interfere with decision-making by experienced air traffic controllers or to hallucinate safety-critical information,” they wrote.

The letter also questioned whether the FAA adequately consulted frontline aviation workers during development and provided sufficient training before deployment.

According to the lawmakers, air traffic controllers and other frontline aviation safety personnel apparently had little input into SMART’s development and received limited information and training during the rollout.

They also questioned the FAA’s decision to pilot the technology in congested airspace, including the National Capital Region, rather than initially limiting deployment to less complex environments.

The lawmakers asked GAO to examine the FAA’s safety risk assessments for both platforms, including how the agency is evaluating SMART’s AI capabilities and how it plans to test and certify the systems for operational use.

They also want GAO to determine whether the FAA has established measurable performance standards for safety, effectiveness, and reliability, along with processes to continuously monitor performance and report results.

The requested audit would further examine the FAA’s coordination with airlines, its Air Traffic Organization, and frontline personnel; its approach to workforce training; and the rationale for selecting initial deployment locations.

The request follows a Sept. 14 GAO report that identified broader weaknesses in the FAA’s air traffic modernization planning.

“Transparency and accountability in the development and deployment of modern, data-driven air traffic control tools are essential to airspace safety,” the lawmakers wrote.

The Oct. 13 letter did not specify a deadline for GAO to complete the requested review.

Army Drone Marketplace Expands to 29 Nations

Thu, 15 Oct 2026 19:42:46 GMT

The U.S. Army on Oct. 13 expanded international participation in its unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) marketplace to 29 nations, with eight additional countries signing statements of intent to join the procurement platform.

The expansion, announced during the 2026 Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C., comes as the Army works to accelerate allied access to approved drone and counter-drone systems through streamlined acquisition processes.

The Army’s UAS and Counter-UAS Marketplaces are digital procurement platforms that let military units buy preapproved, standardized systems through existing contracts. The Army’s Joint Interagency Task Force 401 manages both marketplaces, which have processed $800 million in transactions since the initiative launched.

“With today’s signing, the marketplace is now truly a global effort,” said Brent Ingraham, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology. “It’s not a concept or a pilot program or some distant future. It is live.”

Representatives from Albania, Canada, Croatia, Egypt, Japan, Kuwait, Morocco, and Panama joined U.S. defense officials at the Oct. 13 ceremony to sign statements of intent to participate in the UAS Marketplace.

Acting Secretary of the Army Adam R. Telle, Brent Ingraham, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology, and international allies and partners pose for a photo after signing a UAS and Counter-UAS Statement of Intent during the 2026 AUSA Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C., Oct. 13, 2026. (U.S. Army photo by Laura Buchta).

The signing followed a similar ceremony in Paris over the summer, when Denmark, France, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom joined the marketplaces.

The expansion also reflects the Army’s push for greater interoperability among allied forces.
Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle, who attended the ceremony, said the Army’s emphasis on open architecture should extend beyond the technical design of individual systems to include cooperation and interoperability among international partners.

“We need to be thinking about open architecture at the strategic level, and that means open architecture with our partners, sharing in tactics, techniques, and procedures, and sharing in common equipment,” Telle said.

Before accessing the marketplaces, international partners must complete required approvals to comply with U.S. foreign military sales (FMS) and exportability requirements.

Through a procurement pathway known as the “FMS Fast Lane,” participating nations can order preapproved, standard-configuration drone and counter-drone systems through existing contracts.
According to the Army, addressing exportability requirements in advance – including technology transfer approvals, marketing licenses, and foreign disclosure clearances – has reduced traditional FMS case development timelines from months to days.

The streamlined process is intended to accelerate partner access to approved systems while supporting greater interoperability among allied militaries.

“When we buy together, we solidify our existing partnerships and build an unbreakable, interoperable shield,” Ingraham said.

Federal CISO: New AI Security Governance Group Established

Thu, 15 Oct 2026 18:19:27 GMT

The Federal Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Council has established a new working group focused on artificial intelligence (AI) security governance as the government looks to strengthen its cyber defenses ahead of emerging threats, according to acting Federal CISO Michael Duffy.

Speaking Oct. 14 at the ACT-IAC Cybersecurity Summit in Reston, Va., Duffy said the working group will focus on developing governance frameworks that help CISOs make faster, more informed decisions using AI.

“We have spun up a working group on AI security governance for two things,” Duffy said. “One is to think about decision-making with super intelligence in the future.”

The Trump administration recently began referring to AI as “super intelligence,” or “SI,” and Trump directed the executive branch to use the new terminology in official documents and communications.

“But it’s also to make sure that we have the requisite framework to govern these systems, to understand how the workforce and the capabilities can mesh, so that we are rapidly making better decisions today, so that we can slowly move and migrate to the concepts of machine-to-machine in the future,” he added.

The effort comes as Duffy warns that the rise of AI and rapidly evolving cyber threats leave federal agencies little time to respond after major incidents occur.

“We know that with super intelligence right now, we don’t have that luxury of time to be able to react in the future,” Duffy said. “We need to see the threat environment for what it is today, how technology is changing today, and be decisive in what that long-term view of where things are going needs to be.”

The new working group is part of the CISO Council’s broader effort to strengthen federal cybersecurity. Duffy outlined four priorities guiding the council’s work: reducing exposure to cyber threats, strengthening operational resilience, integrating AI into cybersecurity tools, and securing a modernized federal government.

On exposure management, the council is working to accelerate the replacement of outdated edge devices across agencies. On resilience, Duffy said the council is preparing for its second governmentwide CISO-level tabletop exercise to strengthen coordinated incident response.

“We all collectively need to act today,” Duffy said. “I am not waiting on something catastrophic to change the way the government adjusts to this new environment, this new era that we’re in.”

“We don’t have the time to quickly pivot when something happens,” he added.

Acting Navy Secretary Taps Christopher Miller to Lead Robotics, Autonomy Portfolio

Thu, 15 Oct 2026 18:17:00 GMT

Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao appointed Christopher Miller on Oct. 13 to lead the Navy’s robotic and autonomous systems acquisition portfolio, bringing previously fragmented efforts under a unified structure aimed at accelerating the delivery of new capabilities to the fleet.

Miller, who previously led the Navy’s maritime acquisition portfolio, will serve as portfolio acquisition executive for Robotic and Autonomous Systems (PAE RAS) and concurrently as direct reporting portfolio manager for RAS.

“The character of warfare has shifted, and we cannot afford to field critical capabilities at the speed of bureaucracy,” Cao said in a statement. “Chris Miller brings the operational discipline, accountability, and executive grit needed to cut through red tape, hold industry accountable, and deliver robotic mass to the fleet at the speed of war.”

The PAE RAS portfolio will oversee the acquisition, development, and sustainment of robotic and autonomous capabilities across air, surface, undersea, and ground operations. The new structure is intended to consolidate previously fragmented programs, reduce duplication, and improve coordination across the Navy’s autonomous systems efforts.

In his new role, Miller will streamline acquisition processes and work with commercial technology companies and defense industry partners to evaluate, integrate, and scale proven technologies for operational use.

“Our priority is accelerating the delivery of a lethal hybrid fleet to the warfighter,” Miller said. “By managing these systems as a unified portfolio, we are opening the door to commercial technology partners, eliminating duplicative overhead, and fast-tracking capability from design to deployment.”

Miller most recently served as portfolio acquisition executive for Maritime, overseeing conventional surface shipbuilding, aircraft carriers, expeditionary and mine warfare programs, and associated technical, contracting, and sustainment functions. He also managed the related industrial base.

Before that, Miller served as executive director of Naval Sea Systems Command from 2024 to 2026, overseeing more than 86,000 military and civilian personnel. He previously served as assistant deputy chief of naval operations for warfighting requirements and capabilities and as principal adviser to the deputy chief of naval operations.

DAF Cyber Adviser: AI Must Support, Not Replace, Human Judgment

Thu, 15 Oct 2026 17:46:09 GMT

Artificial intelligence (AI) can help the Department of the Air Force (DAF) analyze cyber threats and respond faster, but human judgment must remain central to cybersecurity operations, according to Wanda Jones-Heath, the department’s principal cyber adviser.

Speaking at the ACT-IAC Cybersecurity Summit on Oct. 14, Jones-Heath said AI should help cyber personnel evaluate information and make decisions, not make them for them.

“AI is a great way to be able to help us get to a decision space quicker, but you still need the human,” Jones-Heath said.

“We cannot let AI make decisions, but it can present the data and the information based on what we see. The human must always make a decision,” she added.

Jones-Heath identified security operations centers (SOCs) as a key area where AI can help personnel analyze network activity, identify suspicious behavior, and detect trends that inform threat response. She pointed to network analysis and threat hunting as functions that could benefit from AI-assisted data analysis.

But Jones-Heath cautioned that increased reliance on AI must not come at the expense of cybersecurity expertise. Operators must continue training and practicing the skills they need to perform their jobs without AI tools, she said.

“We still need those people to have the skills. We still need them to be trained on their job and be proficient,” Jones-Heath said. “Because if we let AI do all the work, then what happens to those skill sets over time, right?”

Maintaining those skills is one part of a broader workforce challenge, Jones-Heath said. The DAF must also give cyber personnel the resources and support they need to succeed in demanding roles.

“We still need to make sure that we are providing them the right tools, the right space to be successful,” she said.

Jones-Heath said cyber personnel face significant pressures and need opportunities to decompress without fear of penalty. She also cited competitive salaries as an important factor in retaining experienced professionals.

Beyond supporting its existing workforce, the department is looking to strengthen talent development through collaboration across the military services, government, industry, and academia.

Hegseth Ties Autonomous Warfare Plans to Uncertain Reconciliation Funding

Wed, 14 Oct 2026 20:10:38 GMT

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Oct. 14 that the Pentagon is seeking roughly $50 billion for autonomous and robotic systems as part of the administration’s broader $350 billion defense reconciliation funding request, which Congress has yet to approve.

“We’d love to do it through the regular budget process, but if we cannot, then we’ll do it through reconciliation,” Hegseth said. He described $350 billion as a minimum target and said the amount could be higher.

Speaking at the Association of the United States Army’s 2026 conference in Washington, D.C., Hegseth said the funding is intended to support the military’s planned Autonomous Warfare Command (AUTOWARCOM).

The administration has requested $350 billion in mandatory defense spending through budget reconciliation to help reach its proposed nearly $1.5 trillion national defense spending target for fiscal year (FY) 2027. The funding would support military modernization, procurement, research and development, critical munitions, and expansion of the defense industrial base.

Congress, however, has not yet approved the requested funding. The House has passed a budget resolution proposing a substantially smaller $60 billion defense reconciliation allocation, focused largely on replenishing munitions and covering costs associated with active conflicts. Senate action remains stalled.

“We will ensure, regardless of what happens in the midterms, we’re running fast immediately with the committees to ensure that that reconciliation bill, at a minimum of [$ 350 billion], potentially more, ultimately fills up what this department needs,” he said.

Pentagon officials, including Comptroller Jay Hurst, have acknowledged that if Congress does not approve the full request, some defense priorities may need to shift into regular discretionary spending bills or be deferred until FY 2028.

Among the priorities potentially affected is the Pentagon’s push to expand autonomous warfare capabilities.

Hegseth said approximately $50 billion of the proposed reconciliation funding would support autonomous and robotic systems, explaining that rapidly expanding those capabilities would require a centralized command structure.

Hegseth announced plans for the Autonomous Warfare Command, or AUTOWARCOM, during his September state of the force speech. The Pentagon has set Oct. 1, 2027, as the target date for activating the organization as a four-star combatant command, although Hegseth has said he expects the work could be completed sooner.

Unlike a traditional combatant command, AUTOWARCOM is intended to have service-like authorities over acquisition, procurement, and deployment of autonomous systems. The structure would allow the Pentagon to coordinate investments across the services and move new drone and robotic capabilities from development into operational use more quickly.

“Whether or not we rebuild our military to meet the threats of the future will depend on funding the president’s vision for $1.5 trillion,” Hegseth said. “Scaling that quickly requires the architecture of an AUTOWARCOM and the services flowing in the same direction.”

Army Reports Record Enterprise Contracting Amid Acquisition Overhaul

Wed, 14 Oct 2026 19:34:41 GMT

The U.S. Army has awarded more enterprise-level contracts this year than ever before as it overhauls its acquisition process to accelerate procurement and manage capabilities across entire portfolios, a senior Army official said Tuesday.

Speaking at the Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting on Oct. 13, Brent Ingraham, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics, and technology, said the service has seen a significant reduction in its procurement timeline recently.

“We’ve done more enterprise-level contracts this year than the Army has ever done before, because we’re looking across the portfolio,” Ingraham said.

“We’re ensuring that when we think about things like software or components or missile systems, that we have the ability to go across the enterprise and lay those out,” he added.

The shift is part of the Army’s broader acquisition reform effort, which established six portfolio acquisition executives (PAEs) to oversee capabilities across mission areas rather than individual programs. The Army gradually began implementing the PAE model in October.

Ingraham said the Army has delegated greater contracting authority to PAEs, giving them dedicated contracting officials and the ability to make procurement decisions across their portfolios.

He added that Army Contracting Command executed more than 100,000 contracts this year, which he said is “more than we’ve done across the Army ever.”

The reforms are also changing how the Army develops requirements. Rather than issuing lengthy, highly detailed specifications, the service is increasingly using shorter statements of need that allow industry to propose solutions.

“We’re not trying to tell industry exactly how to build it, what all the tech specs are,” Ingraham said. “We’re telling you what problem we’re trying to solve.”

He explained that requirements decisions that previously took months can now be completed in days, with some decisions occurring within hours.

Lt. Gen. Frank Lozano, the Army’s portfolio acquisition executive for fires, said the new structure has also accelerated contracting for emerging capabilities.

During Operation Epic Fury, Lozano said his team awarded other transaction agreements (OTAs) for new capabilities within a week of identifying an operational need.

“We literally were awarding OTAs for new capabilities inside of seven days,” Lozano said. “That meant that on day one, when we were hearing about a need, I was already meeting with my collective team.”

Army Makes Open Architecture Non-Negotiable for Future Equipment Purchases

Wed, 14 Oct 2026 18:58:00 GMT

The Army will require open architecture in all future equipment purchases, acting Army Secretary Adam Telle said Oct. 12, as the service moves to eliminate proprietary technology barriers that complicate battlefield integration.

“Everything we buy from here on out will have open architecture. It’s non-negotiable,” Telle said at the Association of the United States Army’s 2026 conference in Washington, D.C.

Telle said proprietary systems have hindered the Army’s ability to share data across platforms and integrate new technologies into existing networks.

“Our individual pieces of equipment must communicate seamlessly, because on the modern battlefield, the kill chain is only as strong as its weakest link,” he said. “If the data is trapped behind proprietary modes, and we have to call a contractor to decode the data, our super intelligent command and control doesn’t matter.”

Telle identified interoperability as one of three major acquisition challenges facing the Army, alongside lengthy procurement timelines and an acquisition structure organized around individual platforms rather than operational requirements.

To address integration barriers in existing equipment, Telle highlighted Operation Jailbreak, an initiative designed to improve interoperability across legacy systems.

Under the initiative, engineers from companies that had never worked together gathered at a single location over several weeks to resolve integration problems, he said. Telle said the approach could reduce the time and cost of connecting existing systems without requiring lengthy development efforts.

Army sets open-architecture requirements for autonomy

The open-architecture requirement also applies to autonomous systems, Army Chief Technology Officer Alexander Miller said during a separate panel on Oct. 13.

“Open architecture is table stakes. We will not pay you to integrate. We won’t. We will find somebody that actually wants to be part of the team, and we will bring them in,” Miller said.

Miller said the Army wants units to combine autonomous capabilities from multiple vendors and configure them for specific missions, rather than rely on a single provider’s technology.

“We do not see autonomy as a monolith, because it’s not,” he said.

Instead, Miller described an approach that brings together teams with different technical strengths to develop and test capabilities alongside soldiers. He said the Army’s priority is to identify the tasks soldiers need to accomplish and then apply the appropriate technologies.

White House Launches 2027 Student AI Challenge, New School Readiness Seal

Wed, 14 Oct 2026 17:42:37 GMT

First Lady Melania Trump launched the 2027 Presidential Super Intelligence (SI) Challenge on Oct. 13, expanding a nationwide technology competition for K-12 students and educators and introducing a new designation that recognizes schools for their readiness to use emerging technologies.

The Presidential SI Challenge encourages students to develop technology-based solutions to problems affecting their schools, families, and communities. Students can participate in elementary, middle school, and high school competitions, while educators can submit projects demonstrating how they incorporate the technology into classroom instruction or administrative activities.

The initiative builds on the inaugural Presidential Artificial Intelligence (AI) Challenge, which, according to the White House, drew more than 20,000 students from all 50 states and U.S. schools abroad.

The original Presidential AI Challenge launched in August 2025. Six national champion teams received recognition at a White House ceremony in June 2026 for projects addressing issues including bullying prevention, accessibility, and public safety.

“America’s future security, prosperity, and global leadership depend on our next generation. Building on last year’s success, the 2027 Presidential Super Intelligence Challenge will empower our children to lead the world,” said Trump.

Registration for the 2027 competition opened Oct. 13 and will remain available through Dec. 18, 2026.
The competition includes two student tracks. The Standard Track asks teams to develop technologies or solutions that address local challenges, while the Trailblazer Track lets middle and high school students tackle broader national problems.

Student teams must submit written project summaries and video demonstrations of their solutions. Educator teams must demonstrate their instructional approaches or technology applications.

Projects are due Dec. 23, 2026. State champions will be announced by Feb. 15, 2027, followed by regional competitions in March and April and a national championship event in Washington, D.C., in June.

The program will offer virtual mentorship and office hours to support participating students, educators, and schools as they prepare their projects and readiness submissions.

The 2027 program also lets eligible K-12 schools earn the new First Lady Seal of SI Readiness by showing how they are preparing students and educators to use emerging technologies responsibly.

This gives entire schools an opportunity to participate, with requirements that extend beyond student competitions.

“America’s next groundbreaking idea is already sitting in a classroom,” said Trump. “We must give our children the knowledge, tools, and opportunities to bring those ideas to life.”

Schools seeking the designation must complete milestones across four areas: school readiness, classroom readiness, workforce readiness, and community readiness. Those milestones include establishing policies for responsible technology use, addressing student privacy and security, providing professional development for educators, and expanding students’ opportunities to learn about emerging technologies.

Schools are also encouraged to partner with employers, community colleges, and workforce training programs, and to establish procedures to address technology-enabled harassment, deepfakes, impersonation, and cyberbullying.

The designation includes standard and Distinction tiers, with additional milestones for schools pursuing higher recognition.

Schools have until April 30, 2027, to submit evidence of completed milestones. Recipients are expected to be announced by May 28, with select schools invited to a recognition event on June 8.

OPM Is Revamping Online Pay Tables for a Modern User Experience

Wed, 14 Oct 2026 17:33:14 GMT

Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Chief Information Officer (CIO) Adam Starr announced on Oct. 14 that OPM is modernizing its online federal pay tables to make it easier for government employees to find and understand their salaries, with a redesigned experience slated to debut before the end of this year.

Speaking at the SAP Public Sector Summit 2026 in Washington, D.C., Starr said the pay tables on OPM.gov receive more than 14 million visits annually, but the existing websites are outdated.

“For years, these have been legacy clunky sites,” Starr said.

He explained that OPM’s current special rate tables require users to know which table number to search for, while General Schedule pay tables are presented as PDFs that can be difficult to navigate.

“They’re hard to read. People need to take two fingers and go down to the exact number, and then maybe the numbers don’t copy,” Starr said. “It’s not the experience that a federal employee deserves.”

To address those challenges, OPM is redesigning the pay tables with a more intuitive interface that will allow employees to easily search for salary information and identify the specific pay information relevant to them.

“We are revamping the pay tables for OPM,” Starr said. “Having a modern user experience, making it easier to search, easier to understand, you know, highlight the column, highlight the row, so you don’t have to do that with your own fingers.”

Accessibility is also a priority. Starr said OPM has already tested the new interface with an accessibility expert who uses a screen reader.

“We showed this version to someone who uses a screen reader, who’s an accessibility expert, and they had absolutely no issues using it,” Starr said.

OPM plans to introduce the redesigned pay tables through a beta launch, making the new interface the default experience while allowing users to return to the existing version if they prefer.

“We’ll get feedback from the agencies, from the employees. We can iterate, relaunch, and get this in people’s hands because that’s how everyone’s doing it in industry. And government should be no different,” Starr said.

For federal employees looking forward to an easier way to navigate their pay information, Starr said the updated tables are coming soon.

“Just know that it is coming later this calendar year. So, stay tuned for that. Give us feedback,” Starr said. “This is in beta, and we want to make sure that it’s responsive to your needs.”

Army Taps Futures Command for Autonomy Overhaul, Plans Corps-Level Testing

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 20:11:36 GMT

Gen. Christopher LaNeve, vice chief of staff and acting chief of staff of the Army, selected the service’s Futures and Concepts Command to be redesigned as the Futures and Autonomous Systems Command (FASCOM), a move that will consolidate several research and modernization organizations as the service expands the use of autonomous technologies across its combat formations.

LaNeve directed the change following an Oct. 1 memorandum from Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle. The directive calls for changes to Army force structure, acquisition, and personnel, prioritizing autonomous capabilities to be fielded no later than fiscal year 2028.

“This goes beyond drones,” LaNeve said on Oct. 13 at the 2026 Association of the United States Army conference in Washington, D.C. “FASCOM will pioneer operational concepts that harness autonomous capabilities across all warfighting functions.”

According to an Army release, FASCOM will be led by a three-star general and will bring together work from the Combat Capabilities Development Command, Medical Research and Development Command, 75th Innovation Command, Joint Modernization Command, and Transformation Decision Analysis Center.

The restructuring is intended to coordinate research, development, and operational experimentation while supporting the Army’s new Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Autonomy, which will oversee efforts to accelerate the acquisition and fielding of autonomous systems.

“We are incorporating autonomous and unmanned systems at every single echelon across the formation … with the force structure to match … including introducing [drones] and robotics military specialties to integrate these technologies at the point of need,” LaNeve said.

One of FASCOM’s first assignments will be to develop and test corps-level autonomous capabilities. The Army’s five corps will evaluate equipment, tactics, and mission concepts to identify approaches that can be adopted more broadly across the service.

The planned experiments cover several types of autonomous operations.

I Corps will test an autonomous fires battery and autonomous watercraft company, while III Corps will evaluate an autonomous armored reconnaissance company. V Corps will experiment with an autonomous breaching company, and XVIII Airborne Corps will test autonomous aerial intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and lift companies.

The U.S. Eighth Army will focus on teaming crewed and uncrewed rotary-wing aircraft, allowing attack aviation pilots to directly control unmanned aircraft system (UAS) sensors for over-the-horizon targeting and coordinated fires.

That effort builds on work at Fort Rucker, Ala., which LaNeve designated as the Army’s UAS Autonomy Center of Excellence.

“Fort Rucker is unique in that we can bring together warfighting experts and cutting-edge commercial capabilities to test technology the way we intend to fight it,” LaNeve said in a statement. “To ensure that we move swiftly to achieve the Army’s autonomy goals, as of today, Fort Rucker will serve as our UAS Autonomy Center of Excellence.”

Beyond those experiments, FASCOM will develop capability-based formations focused on autonomous long-range fires, protection, tanks, logistics, and obstacle breaching, LaNeve said.

Army Cyber Command Expands Use of AI Agents on Its Networks

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 19:57:51 GMT

Army Cyber Command (ARCYBER) is expanding the role of artificial intelligence (AI) agents in its cyber operations, assigning them new responsibilities across defensive and offensive operations and network security while ensuring human operators maintain oversight of their work.

Speaking on Oct. 12 at the 2026 Association of the United States Army (AUSA) conference in Washington, D.C., Lt. Gen. Christopher Eubank, ARCYBER commanding general, said the command is building a workforce of AI agents that can operate alongside humans on the Army’s portion of the Department of Defense Information Network.

“We are in the process of creating an agent workforce that works hand in hand with the human workforce, so human-machine teaming each and every day,” Eubank said.

The effort began in April under Task Force Lexington, which initially focused on developing AI agents for a handful of cyber roles like exploitation analysts and data engineers.

Since then, ARCYBER has expanded the effort to map an entire Cyber Protection Team of AI agents, including roles in analytic support and network analysis, Eubank said.

The command is applying those capabilities across missions to “operate and secure the network, defend the network, or attack the network,” he said.

As the agents take on more responsibilities, ARCYBER is evaluating which tasks they can perform independently, and which still require human review.

He said the task force asks: “Do we let it do that on its own, or is it still something a human should check?” Eubank said the command is taking an incremental approach, monitoring the agents’ performance, retraining them as needed, and gradually expanding their autonomy as they demonstrate their capabilities.

“This is an iterative process. It’s happening daily and weekly inside headquarters as we watch agents learn and grow, then decide what we should let them do on their own versus what needs a human in the loop,” Eubank said. “All work right now is safeguarded with a human in the loop as we continue to learn across this very important emergent technology.”

Eubank emphasized that the command views AI as a way to strengthen its workforce rather than replace personnel. He said human operators will remain essential to managing, evaluating, and retraining the AI agents as the technology takes on more routine tasks.

“Every machine team we have checks in with the human team daily… The humans are checking their work. If there’s retraining to be done, then the retraining occurs,” he said.

This initiative comes as the military weighs how to expand AI capabilities while managing the risks of giving autonomous systems greater responsibility in cyber operations.

Brandon Pugh, the Army’s principal cyber advisor, acknowledged those concerns on the same panel but cautioned against letting them slow adoption of the technology.

“We can’t shy away from fully embracing the technology because of potential fears,” Pugh said.

“No matter what we do from a policy or regulatory standpoint, bad actors might seek to do harm leveraging SI. It is on us to make sure that our defenders and our operators have an advantage of using the same technology and are staying ahead of those individuals,” he said.

Pugh used the term “super intelligence,” or “SI,” to refer to AI, reflecting terminology the Trump administration recently adopted for official executive branch documents and communications.

“SI is real. It’s here. It’s here to stay, and I think we should all just embrace it,” Eubank said.

Army begins Project Griffin awards

Pugh also shared that the Army is preparing to announce its first Project Griffin awards, an initiative aimed at developing AI agents that can autonomously detect malicious activity on Army networks and respond to cyber threats. Pugh said the service expects to announce awards to two companies on Friday, Oct. 16. He did not identify the companies, but said the Army received more than 100 industry submissions. They narrowed the field to 10 companies and ultimately selected two.

According to solicitation documents, Project Griffin aims to develop an autonomous, AI-driven capability called the Intelligent Response and Orchestration Node. The system would serve as a central decision-making component for automating cyber defense actions on the Army’s portion of the Department of Defense Information Network.

Pugh said the initial awards will focus on Project Griffin’s response capabilities, moving beyond detecting potential threats to taking action against them within parameters established by human operators.

“The one that we plan to award on Friday is our take action element. So essentially, how are we not only autonomously detecting a potential adversary? How are we now doing something – having an autonomous response within prescribed parameters of a human operator, or even in conjunction with that?” Pugh said.

“That is extraordinary. Something we haven’t done, and we’re very excited about,” he added.

Microsoft Launches Azure Enclave for Sensitive Government Cloud Workloads

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 19:50:46 GMT

Microsoft announced Oct. 13 that its Azure Enclave service is now generally available in both commercial Azure and Azure for U.S. Government, giving federal agencies and defense contractors a new option for deploying and managing isolated cloud environments for sensitive workloads.

However, Microsoft said accreditation efforts remain underway for Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program requirements, Department of Defense Impact Levels 4, 5, and 6, and intelligence community environments governed by Intelligence Community Directive 503.

According to Microsoft’s announcement, Azure Enclave provides managed infrastructure and predefined security architectures intended to reduce the work required to establish isolated environments for individual programs and workloads.

The service uses what Microsoft calls a community-and-enclave model.

“This model helps teams streamline planning, configuration, testing, and ongoing management,” according to Microsoft.

Communities provide shared network controls, while individual enclaves establish isolated boundaries around workloads. Agencies can apply common governance policies across multiple enclaves while controlling which users, applications, services, and data can connect.

The approach is designed to support government missions that require collaboration across organizational boundaries without giving participants unrestricted access to sensitive systems.

Microsoft said Azure Policy can govern communities and enclaves, while centralized logging and monitoring let security teams track access, configuration changes, and data flows. Organizations can also integrate Microsoft Sentinel or other security information and event management tools to support security monitoring and analysis.

The company emphasized that Azure Enclave does not replace existing security and compliance responsibilities. Customers remain responsible for configuring their environments, assessing applicable requirements, and ensuring their workloads meet necessary security obligations.

Azure Enclave supports workloads spanning multiple Azure subscriptions, allowing agencies and contractors to manage related environments under shared policies rather than developing separate security architectures for each deployment.

The service includes network segmentation, role-based access controls, managed connection paths, and approval workflows. Virtual networking infrastructure is isolated by default, and customers must explicitly configure and manage connections.

For Accenture Federal Services, Azure Enclave simplifies deploying applications and services across secure, isolated environments, improving efficiency while maintaining the controls customers require.

“This enables teams to spend less time managing infrastructure and more time focused on delivering outcomes for the mission,” said Justin Shirk, the joint and strategic defense lead at Accenture Federal Services.

The launch is aimed at organizations handling sensitive information, including federal agencies, defense industrial base contractors, national laboratories, and mission partners. But beyond federal agencies and defense contractors, Microsoft is positioning Azure Enclave for organizations in other regulated sectors, including healthcare, financial services, and research institutions.

Democrats Demand Answers on VA’s EHRM Contract Increase

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 19:47:32 GMT

The top Democrats on the House and Senate committees overseeing the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) want to know why the department increased the ceiling of its contract with Oracle Health for the agency’s Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program by nearly $17 billion.

Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., ranking members of the VA committees, sent an Oct. 6 letter to VA Secretary Doug Collins asking who approved the increase. The lawmakers publicly released the letter on Oct. 13.

In August, the VA quietly raised the ceiling of its EHRM contract from nearly $10 billion to $27 billion without alerting the committees overseeing the department.

“The Committees on Veterans’ Affairs in the House and Senate have worked closely with VA since the original contract was signed. VA’s decline in transparency, particularly regarding recent contract modifications, is extremely troubling,” the lawmakers wrote.

Takano and Blumenthal are demanding that VA provide an unredacted copy of the contract modification, documentation justifying the increase, and all communications between the department and Oracle related to the contract changes by Oct. 30.

The lawmakers also want to know who ordered the redactions to the contract documents and why, as well as how VA calculated the new contract ceiling.

VA previously cited “unanticipated complexities” in deploying the Federal EHR as the reason for increasing the contract ceiling, which represents the maximum amount the department can spend under the contract.

The lawmakers said VA has yet to explain those complexities or provide documents requested by committee staff on Aug. 27 ahead of a Sept. 2 oversight hearing.

They are also requesting VA’s latest life cycle cost estimate, including a breakdown of contract, infrastructure, and program costs, and asking whether the department will commission an independent estimate of the program’s total costs.

Another concern centers on Oracle’s previous commitment to cover additional expenses associated with the EHRM program.

“Given that Oracle committed to absorbing the additional costs for the EHRM program contract, please provide an explanation for why VA is now footing these same costs?” the lawmakers asked.

During the Sept. 2 House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing, VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence said he could not explain how that commitment factored into the latest contract modification.

“I’ve got to figure out what was promised and see how our acquisition folks dealt with that,” Lawrence told lawmakers.

Additionally, Takano and Blumenthal are seeking information about VA’s decision to accelerate the deployment of the Federal EHR across its medical facilities by 2031.

Specifically, the lawmakers want to know what analysis VA conducted of elevated patient safety event reporting at facilities already using the system before accelerating deployments, and whether the department assessed how the faster rollout would affect costs.

The latest congressional inquiry follows a Sept. 2 House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing during which lawmakers from both parties questioned the contract increase and the reliability of VA’s EHRM cost estimates.

At that hearing, the committee voted unanimously to subpoena Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison and Oracle Health CEO Mike Sicilia after the executives declined to testify at the hearing. The subpoenas, subsequently served on Sept. 14, call for Sicilia to testify on Nov. 19 and Ellison on Dec. 10.

VA resumed Federal EHR deployments in April after a nearly two-year pause and plans to complete the nationwide rollout by 2031, including 26 additional deployments scheduled for 2027.

Takano and Blumenthal are demanding that VA provide the requested documents and written responses by Oct. 30.

CISA Readies CI Fortify Cyber Recovery Exercises

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 19:42:39 GMT

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is preparing to launch a new tabletop exercise program under its CI Fortify initiative to help critical infrastructure operators strengthen their ability to recover from cyberattacks, acting CISA Director Nick Andersen said Tuesday.

Speaking at the Rubrik Public Sector Summit on Oct. 13, Andersen said the agency is developing practical resources to help organizations assess their ability to isolate compromised systems and restore critical operations following a cyber incident.

“We’re providing actionable toolkits to them, like our CI Fortify tabletop exercise program that’s getting ready to launch, and a couple of other capabilities to be able to put directly in their hands,” Andersen said.

Andersen did not specify when the tabletop exercise program would launch.

The CI Fortify initiative focuses on helping critical infrastructure owners and operators prepare for major cyber disruptions and prioritize the services most essential to public health, national security, and economic stability. CISA launched the initiative in May.

The CI Fortify initiative also extends beyond the United States. Andersen said CISA “intentionally kicked it off as a Five Eyes conversation” to coordinate resilience and recovery planning with international partners.

Ultimately, Andersen said the initiative aims to ensure essential services can withstand disruptions or be rapidly restored, whether disruptions are caused by malicious cyber activity or natural disasters.

“Being able to have that measurable, demonstrable level of accountability for continuous delivery of essential services” is central to the effort, Andersen said.

Andersen urged organizations to identify their most critical systems and determine the minimum level of operations that must remain available during a crisis.

“I think it starts with that crown jewels analysis of what is absolutely most important, and what is that minimum viability level to be able to persist as an organization,” Andersen said.

“When we start to frame that conversation in our minds around what is actually important and what is just an inconvenience if it’s not available, that gets us to a really interesting space,” he added.

Barrett Introduces Bill to Create Federal AI Oversight Office

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 19:44:31 GMT

Rep. Tom Barrett, R-Mich., introduced legislation on Oct. 9 that would establish a Cabinet-level office within the White House to oversee artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technology threats, creating a central authority to coordinate federal AI policy and risk management.

The Artificial Intelligence Governance and Emerging Threats Act would establish the U.S. Office of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Threats within the Executive Office of the President, according to Barrett’s press release.

“We are already seeing [AI] replace American jobs, threaten our national security, and degrade human dignity,” Barrett said.

“These risks cannot be ignored, so it’s time to create a seat at the table for someone to monitor AI technology, ensure strong guardrails are in place, and prepare us for this new era of technological innovation and beyond,” Barrett added.

Under the proposal, the new office would be led by a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed representative who would serve in the president’s Cabinet.

The representative would act as the president’s principal adviser on AI and emerging technology threats, coordinate policy across federal agencies, and monitor risks and opportunities associated with rapidly developing technologies.

The official would also be required to testify regularly before Congress on AI developments and potential threats.

The office would include five Senate-confirmed deputy representatives responsible for intergovernmental coordination, international engagement, private sector engagement, national security and emerging technology threats, and economic and workforce impacts.

Barrett said he modeled the proposed office after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which coordinates activities across federal intelligence agencies and traditionally holds a Cabinet-level position.

“The United States government has a fundamental responsibility to protect its citizens from all threats, including those we might not see coming,” Barrett said. “The rapid development of AI technology, which has potential to improve our society, has exposed the serious dangers that can come with it.”

DOJ, FBI Seize Hacking Tools Used by Flax Typhoon

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 19:27:07 GMT

The Justice Department (DOJ) and FBI announced on Oct. 8 that they seized two hacking tools used by the China state-sponsored hacking group Flax Typhoon to target critical infrastructure and other networks in the United States and abroad.

The court-authorized seizures targeted Microscan and FishHub, two tools allegedly operated by hackers working for Integrity Technology Group (Integrity Tech), a China-based company with contracts with the Chinese government, according to an Oct. 8 press release.

“Integrity Technology Group provided China-linked threat actors with capabilities used to conduct widespread vulnerability scanning and, in some cases, intrusions targeting U.S. and foreign critical infrastructure,” said Brett Leatherman, assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division.

According to court documents, Integrity Tech developed Microscan to identify vulnerabilities in computer networks that its clients could later exploit. The tool relied in part on a botnet of internet of things (IoT) devices infected with a variant of Mirai malware.

Microscan targeted a South Carolina power company, airports in Japan and Poland, Taiwanese natural gas and power companies, two Taiwanese universities, and a multinational nongovernmental organization.

The second tool, FishHub, allegedly enabled hackers to compromise networks through spear phishing attacks. After gaining initial access, the tool downloaded additional malware that allowed unauthorized remote access or searched for specific files to send to servers controlled by Integrity Tech.

The DOJ said approximately 20 Taiwanese universities were confirmed victims of FishHub activity.

“The PRC relies on contractor and enabling companies to expand the reach and scale of its malicious cyber activity,” Leatherman said, referring to the People’s Republic of China. “By exposing and disrupting these enablers, we make it harder for the PRC to target American networks and infrastructure.”

The seizures mark the DOJ’s second public disruption of Integrity Tech’s hacking infrastructure. In September 2024, the department disrupted a botnet the company operated that had compromised more than 200,000 consumer devices worldwide, including in the United States.

Alongside the latest seizures, the FBI and its U.S. and international partners released a joint cybersecurity advisory with indicators of compromise tied to Integrity Tech’s activities to help organizations identify and respond to potential intrusions.

White House AI Task Force Weighs Safety, US Competitiveness

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 19:09:47 GMT

The White House’s newly formed Super Intelligence (SI) Force is working to develop recommendations that keep the United States competitive in artificial intelligence (AI) while ensuring the technology is developed and deployed responsibly, according to Scott Kupor, vice chair of the task force and director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Speaking during an Oct. 12 CNBC interview, Kupor said the task force is examining the risks and opportunities of increasingly advanced AI systems, including the government’s role in overseeing their development and holding technology companies accountable.

“The goal is to make sure that we continue to win, which we are winning, and ensure that we do so responsibly,” Kupor said.

Trump announced the creation of the “Super Intelligence Force” on Oct. 4, bringing together federal officials to coordinate the administration’s AI strategy amid its opposition to broader AI regulation.

AI safety and industry accountability

As the task force weighs how to balance those priorities, Kupor said AI developers must test their products before release and notify the government when problems arise.

“The industry bears a lot of responsibility here to make sure that when they release things, they’re safe, they’re appropriately vetted,” he said.

The task force is also considering how the government can independently verify companies’ safety claims rather than relying solely on industry self-reporting.

“We’re not just going to sit around and wait for the companies to tell us they’ve done their work,” Kupor said.

Kupor discussed the potential role of third-party security audits, suggesting that independent auditors could report findings to corporate boards while government officials retain the ability to verify compliance and pursue enforcement.

He pointed to existing product-liability and corporate-responsibility laws as part of the framework for holding AI developers accountable.

Kupor also acknowledged concerns about controlling increasingly capable systems but said safeguards would continue to evolve alongside the technology.

Asked about differing views among technology executives on AI safety, Kupor declined to speculate about their motivations. However, he said companies that believe they are releasing products they cannot control, and that could cause harm, should take their responsibilities under existing laws seriously.

Kupor also cautioned against broadly slowing AI development, arguing that such a move would not prevent competing nations from advancing their own capabilities.

“There is no magical kill switch somewhere where if we decide to slow this down, that doesn’t mean other adversaries won’t continue to advance the technology,” he said.

Data center energy and water demands

Beyond AI safety, Kupor urged technology companies to address growing concerns about AI data centers’ electricity and water demands rather than waiting for technological advances to reduce those pressures.

“We don’t need to debate whether water is going to get better, or energy is going to get better. We should just take care of that,” Kupor said.

He suggested companies could address concerns about rising electricity rates or provide their own power, though he did not specify what measures the task force might recommend.

Kupor’s comments come as the Trump administration pushes AI companies to cover the electricity costs of expanding data centers.

Following President Donald Trump’s Feb. 24, 2026, State of the Union address, seven major technology companies signed a voluntary Ratepayer Protection Pledge on March 4, committing to cover power generation and infrastructure costs rather than pass them on to consumers. On July 23, the administration expanded the initiative to utilities, state officials, and data center developers, but the pledge remains voluntary and imposes no binding federal requirements.
Kupor did not say whether the task force would recommend additional federal requirements for data center operators.

Army Plans ‘Manufacturing Rodeo’ to Test Industrial Supply Chain

Mon, 12 Oct 2026 18:58:19 GMT

Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle announced on Oct. 12 that the service plans to hold a “manufacturing rodeo” early next year to test the defense industrial base’s production capacity, identify supply-chain weaknesses, and determine whether manufacturers can scale production to meet military demand.

“We’re going to stress test the supply chain, the manufacturing processes, and see where it breaks,” Telle said during the Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. “We’re going to find the weak links. We’re going to make them stronger, and we’re going to keep iterating.”

The manufacturing rodeo would extend the Army’s ongoing modernization efforts by testing whether its industrial base can produce equipment at the speed and scale military operations require.

According to the Army, the service has shifted its modernization focus this year from production targets for individual weapons systems toward expanding flexible advanced manufacturing capabilities across its organic industrial base (OIB). Telle said the rodeo will stress-test both the Army’s OIB and the nation’s broader manufacturing network to identify production constraints and supply-chain weaknesses.

“The biggest acquisition program in the Army is building a system of seamless, frictionless, symbiotic relationship with American ingenuity,” Telle said. “We’ve invested a lot in our organic industrial base. Now we need to strain it in the nation’s larger industrial base.”

The Army has established advanced manufacturing hubs at installations including Red River Army Depot, Anniston Army Depot, and Tobyhanna Army Depot. It has also formed public-private partnerships with companies including Hadrian and Siemens to expand its ability to manufacture components on demand.

According to a statement from the service, those capabilities are intended to support both legacy and future weapons systems, from electric motors to replacement parts such as tank engine transmission belt housings. The Army said the approach could reduce dependence on traditional supply chains and help sustain equipment readiness.

The planned rodeo will put those capabilities to the test, examining whether the Army and its industry partners can increase production quickly enough to meet operational demand.

“We can’t evolve the Army at the speed of government; we have to evolve it at the speed of business,” Telle said.

Drones put production capacity to the test

Telle also pointed to the growing use of drones on the battlefield as a major reason the Army needs to accelerate acquisition and expand domestic manufacturing.

He said soldiers can now connect to sensors ranging from satellites in geosynchronous orbit to autonomous ground systems, creating new opportunities to detect and respond to threats.

A video shown during his remarks emphasized the speed of the emerging drone threat: “1,000 drones don’t give you 1,000 problems; they give you one: time.”

Telle said the Army needs domestic manufacturing capacity to produce millions of basic attack drones but warned that the service still doesn’t control enough of the components needed to build them.

“It may look simple, but it’s a flying supply chain, a supply chain we don’t control enough of. If we control the parts, we control the pace,” he said.

The Army is also working to field low-cost interceptors to defend against missiles and drones. Telle said those systems must integrate with the service’s existing networks.

“We know we need thousands of these things, but they have to seamlessly connect to our network,” he said.

Telle also highlighted the Army’s unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) marketplace as another example of its efforts to connect soldiers directly with commercial technology providers and speed equipment delivery.

Developed with Amazon Web Services and the Army Enterprise Cloud Management Agency, the digital marketplace lets Army units, government partners, and allied nations compare vetted unmanned and counter-unmanned aircraft systems, provide feedback, and place orders.

“What we did is cut out the bureaucratic middleman and connected the soldiers directly with the builders,” Telle said.

He said the marketplace lets soldiers identify equipment and receive orders within days, rather than navigate lengthy traditional acquisition processes.

A video shown during his remarks said the marketplace had generated nearly $800 million in sales over four months.
The marketplace and planned manufacturing rodeo reflect two parts of the Army’s acquisition push – speeding the purchase of commercially available technology while testing whether the domestic industrial base can produce it at the scale military operations require.

House Democrats Reintroduce Bill to Create CISA AI Security Task Force

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 20:00:26 GMT

Reps. Troy Carter Sr., D-La., and Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., reintroduced legislation on Oct. 8 that would establish a task force within the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to coordinate federal efforts to address artificial intelligence (AI) cybersecurity risks.

The CISA Securing AI Task Force Act would give the agency one year after enactment to establish the task force, which would assess AI security initiatives, identify workforce gaps, and advise stakeholders on cybersecurity risks associated with deploying the technology. The proposal would also require twice-yearly briefings to congressional homeland security committees.

“As technology advances in sophistication and use, our commitment to safeguarding against emerging threats and ensuring the responsible advancement of AI technologies must grow stronger too,” Carter said.

Under the bill, CISA’s director would assemble personnel from across the agency’s offices and divisions to coordinate AI-related directives and activities.

“Advancements in AI technology are expanding by the day and we need to make sure our cybersecurity defenses are moving with it,” said Thompson, who serves as the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee.

“This bill creates a dedicated CISA task force so the agency can better understand the risks that come with AI and make sure we are prepared to protect the systems and infrastructure Americans rely on every day,” Thompson said.

The task force would focus on the safe and secure design, development, adoption, and deployment of AI. Its responsibilities would include reviewing existing safety and security efforts, advising stakeholders on potential cybersecurity threats, and identifying workforce shortfalls that could limit the government’s ability to respond to emerging risks.

The legislation would require the task force to brief the House Homeland Security Committee and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee twice a year, providing lawmakers with regular updates on CISA’s AI security activities.

The bill comes as Congress continues to debate the scope of federal AI regulation, including how to address cybersecurity risks while supporting the technology’s development and adoption.

FBI Announces Another Arrest in ShinyHunters Investigation

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 19:55:42 GMT

The FBI has arrested another suspected co-conspirator linked to the ShinyHunters hacking group, FBI Director Kash Patel announced Oct. 9, as authorities continue an international investigation into the cybercrime network.

In an Oct. 9 statement, Patel said the arrest was the latest in a series of actions against suspected members of ShinyHunters. The group has been linked to a recent cybersecurity incident involving FBIJobs.gov, the bureau’s recruiting website, which operates on a platform managed by a third-party vendor.

“This is the latest arrest this FBI has made in a matter of days involving this network, as we work non-stop to dismantle the group, pursue new leads and evidence, and act quickly,” said Patel.

The FBI did not identify the suspect or disclose the charges. The New York Times reported that the suspect was a Canadian man arrested in Pennsylvania, citing two sources familiar with the matter.

The arrest follows an Oct. 3 Reuters report that suspected ShinyHunters member Saif al-Din Khader was detained in Jordan and was cooperating with investigators. Two sources told Reuters that Khader was assisting the FBI and other law enforcement agencies in locating additional members of the hacking group.

The FBI also announced Sept. 29 that Dutch authorities had arrested an alleged ShinyHunters leader. At the time, Brett Leatherman, assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division, said the suspect and alleged co-conspirators had breached more than 140 organizations and collected at least $70 million in extortion payments since 2025.

In September, ShinyHunters claimed it accessed information on nearly all FBI agents and individuals who had applied for jobs with the bureau.

“We will continue to work closely with our partners to disrupt what’s left of the ShinyHunters group and their associates, no matter where they operate,” Patel said.

NASA Moves to Treat Data, Software as Strategic Assets for AI

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 16:53:22 GMT

NASA is moving to treat data and software as strategic assets under a new agency directive aimed at accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) development and improving access to information across its scientific, engineering, and business systems.

Kevin Murphy, acting NASA chief data and super intelligence officer and chief science data officer in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said the directive from the agency’s deputy administrator is driving efforts to connect previously siloed systems and modernize the infrastructure needed to support AI.

Speaking at a GovCIO event on scaling AI and data across federal agencies, Murphy said NASA plans to expand its use of application programming interfaces to make internal information more accessible to authorized users. The effort will also extend to NASA’s publicly available scientific data.

“You can’t have super intelligence or artificial intelligence without … a really good data ecosystem,” Murphy said.

The modernization push supports NASA’s broader mission goals, including returning astronauts to the moon by 2028, advancing scientific instruments, and developing the next generation of experimental aircraft.

Murphy said achieving those goals requires better connections between wind tunnels, computing environments, engineering databases, and other systems while maintaining security.

Data governance remains a major challenge, he said. NASA, Murphy said, must manage controlled unclassified information, export-controlled data, and proprietary information as it expands data sharing and considers how sensitive information can be incorporated into AI models.

The agency is also exploring ways to use its approximately 200 petabytes of publicly available scientific data for AI development, he said. According to Murphy, NASA is working with commercial partners, including NVIDIA and IBM, on foundation models using scientific observations.

Murphy pointed to lunar imagery as one example of the technical challenges involved. Unlike Earth-based observations, lunar imaging lacks GPS positioning and requires additional calculations to account for orbital conditions, camera positioning, and lighting.

NASA is also experimenting with generative AI for physics-based design and considering AI agents for project management and configuration control.

However, Murphy said the agency has not yet resolved how to govern AI agents that can access data or perform tasks across interconnected systems.

“I think that’s still a to be solved question,” Murphy said, citing ongoing work to determine the policies, infrastructure, and management controls needed to support agent-based systems.

NASA is evaluating vendor solutions and examining the costs and operational requirements associated with deploying agents. Murphy warned that insufficient oversight could lead to unintended consequences, particularly as the agency balances security requirements with scientists’ and engineers’ ability to experiment.

Schiff Rejects AI Industry Self-Policing, Calls for Federal Oversight

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 15:34:16 GMT

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., called for stronger federal oversight of artificial intelligence (AI) on Oct. 8, arguing that AI companies cannot be relied upon to police themselves as increasingly powerful models are developed.

Speaking at a Punchbowl News technology summit, Schiff said federal officials should establish safety protocols, monitoring systems, and other safeguards for advanced AI models, rather than relying on voluntary commitments from the companies developing them.

“We need to put in place protocols and monitors, to make sure that as these frontier models are developing, they’re developing safely,” Schiff said. “I certainly don’t believe the self-policing moral authority argument is sufficient.”

Schiff’s comments come as Congress continues to weigh AI regulation without agreement on what a comprehensive federal framework should include. President Donald Trump has repeatedly rejected calls for additional AI regulation, favoring voluntary industry commitments.

The Trump administration backed that approach through an agreement on AI safety principles that Trump described as “morally binding.”

But profit incentives and global competition make voluntary AI safeguards insufficient, Shiff said.

“There’s just too much profit motive, too much of a collective action problem that confronts the whole industry globally,” he said.

AI companies and countries face pressure to develop increasingly powerful systems faster than their competitors, potentially at the expense of safety, Shiff noted. Without common safeguards, companies that prioritize safety risk falling behind, making “voluntary self-regulation difficult to sustain,” he said.

Schiff said federal oversight should address risks such as catastrophic misuse, attacks on the financial system, and threats to personal privacy without stifling innovation or weakening the United States’ ability to compete with China.

“We want to make sure what we’re doing is safe for our people and safe for others,” Schiff said.

“I want to see oversight that leads to sensible regulation of an industry that can do a lot of good and can do a lot of harm, to minimize the harms, to protect against the harms,” he said.

Tech Giants Commit $2.4B in AI, Computing Resources to Genesis Mission

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 19:50:36 GMT

Eleven technology companies have pledged a combined $2.4 billion in artificial intelligence (AI) tools and computing resources to support the Trump administration’s Genesis Mission, expanding access to advanced technologies for more than 15 federal agencies.

The commitments were announced at the White House’s “Science: A New Golden Age Summit” on Oct. 8, alongside a broader package of science initiatives representing more than $6 billion in investments from government, industry, academia, and philanthropy.

“The efforts announced today will channel billions of dollars across our science ecosystem to realize the new scientific opportunities that now exist,” White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios said in a fact sheet.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, we are ushering in a New Golden Age of Science powered by super intelligence, a return to merit, and bold national missions that will inspire Americans for generations to come,” Kratsios added.

The largest industry commitments include $1 billion from Nvidia, $500 million from AMD, and $200 million from OpenAI. Anthropic and Google each pledged $150 million, while AMP and Emerald AI committed $100 million apiece. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Armada, Crusoe, and Micron each committed $50 million.

The resources will support the Genesis Mission Consortium, which brings together federal agencies and industry partners to apply advanced AI and computing capabilities to scientific challenges spanning energy, health, space, and other research areas.

In November 2025, President Donald Trump launched the Genesis Mission, an effort overseen by the Department of Energy (DOE). In July, the administration expanded the initiative to more than 15 federal agencies and announced a $5 billion federal commitment to support national science and technology challenges.

AWS also announced a new Golden Age of Science Accelerator that will provide up to $50 million in cloud computing credits over three years to eligible federal science agencies and research partners.

Under the program, participants can submit proposals for research projects aligned with federal scientific priorities. Selected projects will receive credits applied to existing contracts, allowing researchers to access AWS computing resources.

“American scientists are on the cusp of breakthroughs that will define the next century – from accelerating biomedical research and improving health outcomes, to AI-driven drug discovery – but they need computing power at scale,” David Appel, interim vice president of worldwide public sector at AWS, said in a statement.

Federal agencies also announced new initiatives on Thursday supporting the administration’s science agenda.

DOE announced $159 million in funding for 12 new Phase II Genesis Mission projects, including efforts to use AI to advance fusion energy, quantum computing, semiconductor design, and scientific software.

Meanwhile, the National Science Foundation unveiled new research initiatives, including quantum and biotechnology prize competitions and a consortium backed by more than $300 million in commitments to support independent scientific research teams.

Separately, the Department of Defense announced plans to help scholars participating in the Genesis Mission fellowship collaborate with the DOE.

Pentagon Plans Research Talent Exchange With DOE’s Genesis Mission

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 19:49:30 GMT

The Department of Defense (DOD) is planning a new research talent exchange with the Department of Energy (DOE) that would give scholars participating in the Genesis Mission Fellowship program opportunities to collaborate with Pentagon researchers and gain experience across federal laboratories.

The initiative, slated for exploration beginning in fiscal year 2027, would connect DOE’s Genesis Mission Fellowship program with two existing DOD scholarship programs – the Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship for Service Program and the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate program.

The Pentagon outlined the plans in an Oct. 8 press release detailing its efforts to implement the White House’s strategy for strengthening American scientific research and technological competitiveness.

“President Trump has made it clear that technological dominance requires us to move faster, safeguard our research, and build right here in America,” said Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael.

“We are answering that call by dismantling barriers to commercialization, modernizing our labs, and ruthlessly securing taxpayer-funded research from foreign exploitation,” Michael said. “The Department of War will continue to turn the President’s vision of a new golden age of science into unrivaled capability for our warfighters.”

Under the Trump administration, the DOD was rebranded as the Department of War.

Under the proposed exchange, participating scholars would have opportunities to pursue internships across DOE and DOD laboratories, as well as with industry partners. The effort aims to strengthen collaboration between the departments and expand opportunities for researchers working on technologies relevant to national security.

Since its inception, SMART has awarded more than 6,500 scholarships, with 91% of participants successfully completing the program, according to DOD. The department said its SMART Scholarship for Service Program welcomed more than 750 scholars this year, marking its largest cohort since the program launched in 2006.

The program provides tuition assistance, stipends, and internships to students pursuing degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in exchange for civilian service with the department.

DOD has not specified when the proposed Genesis Mission talent exchange would begin accepting participants, how many scholars could participate, or whether additional funding would be provided.

The planned exchange is one of several research workforce and collaboration initiatives announced by the Pentagon as it implements recommendations from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The department also announced a new memorandum of understanding with the National Science Foundation to coordinate research programs, experimental infrastructure, and emerging technology development.

Among the initial areas of collaboration are the Programmable Cloud Laboratories Network and a $40 million artificial intelligence initiative known as AI Forge.

The Pentagon also plans to develop new measures for evaluating the performance of its research laboratories and university-affiliated research organizations, with an emphasis on research outcomes rather than spending and activity levels.